


Math and Mud: Things Young Boy Geniuses Love

by Pookaseraph



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Childhood Sweethearts, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 01:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pookaseraph/pseuds/Pookaseraph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann didn't like to admit it, but he always remembered his family vacation to Lake Como and the funny little boy he'd met there who he'd watched the stars with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Math and Mud: Things Young Boy Geniuses Love

**Author's Note:**

> Anon prompt on Tumblr: In the drift we see child Hermann playing with a plane and I just really want child or teen Newt and Hermann interacting.

Hermann's family was in Lake Como on holiday. It was nice, his parents were very interested in making sure that he and his brothers and sister learned things about culture, but Hermann was seven, and the concert wasn't very entertaining for him, so he'd slipped his leash and headed out to look at the stars. He had a notepad where he tracked them, because it made him feel like Johannes Kepler. There was another boy outside on the patio with him, about his age, not dressed as neatly as Hermann, with his shoes and socks off, his trouser legs rolled up, and mud up past his ankles.

"Ciao," the boy said. Hermann saw he had dark brown hair and bright green eyes hidden behind glasses.

"Ah... no capisce."

"Nemmeno io," he answered, laughing. "Ahhh, Deutsch?"

He was more than relieved to not have to continue in bad Italian. It had taken a certain amount of guts just to say what he had. "Sure. I'm Hermann."

"Newt!"

Hermann frowned.

"It's short for Newton."

Hermann hugged his notepad to his chest, startled that a boy was named something like Newton, here, at a funny little theater on Lake Como. "Are you here to look at stars?" Hermann asked, not quite daring to hope.

"I prefer bugs," Newt answered, and then he wiggled his toes, just to make it clear. "Stars are fine, though, are you German? There are little differences because we're more south."

Hermann bristled. "Yes, I know that." He didn't want the boy to think he was stupid, he was really very bright. He was the smartest seven year old in his entire class.

Newt didn't seem to mind, he just shrugged and went over to the little patio wall and laid down on it as though he owned the entire world. He wasn't... well he didn't seem to be teasing, just wanted to look up at the stars. Hermann joined him, sitting near Newt's head so he could look at the boy's face, and then glance up at the stars. "So you like stars?"

"They make sense," Hermann said. He didn't know the all the rules, but they went the same way, they turned, they traveled across the sky, and they set just like the sun, just farther away. There was mathematics behind the movements.

"I think they look cool."

Hermann rolled his eyes, which the boy obviously saw, because he made a protesting noise.

"Well they do. Awesome! They look so tiny, but they're huge. I bet you don't like music, either."

"I like music fine," Hermann protested. He wasn't sure why he would argue. Music was fine, it didn't make him feel the way that it did Mama or Deitrich. "You're out here, too. Maybe _you_ don't like music."

"My mom's doing the singing... it's less cool the googolzillionth time."

"Googolzillion is not a number."

"Well it's not a _real_ number."

"Nor is it a natural number," Hermann answered, sniffing primly. Although, he supposed it would be a natural number if it wasn't a fake number.

Newt, rather than frown, just laughed up at him. "Wow, you're a big nerd, too."

Hermann was prepared to argued, or prepared to fight, when he realized Newt had said 'too', like he was a nerd too, and Hermann thought that it was very unlikely that a boy with muddy feet was that smart. "I bet you can't even divide 144 by 6."

"Pshhh. 24. It's better if you ask 252 by 6."

"What does 42 have to do with anything?" Hermann asked, very confused by the boy.

Instead of a real answer, Newt laughed again, but there was something about it that said that Newt was laughing... not _at_ him, even if it wasn't with him either, like Hermann was funny but not because he was a nerd or laughable. It was a nice laugh. "Well when _I_ grow up, I'm gonna study dinosaurs."

"I don't think that's very practical." That's what Father said whenever he said he would like to be a pilot someday.

"Practical!" Newt laughed at the word again. "Who cares? It's fun. Dinosaurs are the coolest. Don't you want to ride on a dinosaur?"

"No."

"What do you want to do?"

Father said that he would be a professor of math or physics, something that looked at the world and found truth, something that showed everything. "I want to be a pilot."

"See, that's almost as cool as a dinosaur."

"You can control a plane!" Hermann answered. "The dinosaur would just run around and trample everything."

Newt didn't argue, so Hermann knew he'd won, but he looked down to where the boy was sprawled, his eyes were closed and his hair was all over everywhere and his glasses made his eyelashes really big.

"You're really nice," Hermann said, because he was, even though he was arguing with him, it wasn't like with Father or his brothers or like at school at all. It was like they were arguing to be friends, not enemies.

"You too."

The two of them were quiet, and Hermann looked up at the sky, making his notations and drawing what he saw, looking down at his watch and seeing where Newt had his eyes closed. Maybe he was thinking, maybe he was napping.

"You know what would solve this?" Newt said, his eyes snapped open and he sat up. "Mechagodzilla."

It was just so ridiculous, and Hermann laughed at Newt where they were sitting together, laughing about nothing, leaning up against each other, shoulder to shoulder. Newt was pretty great.

"Where do you live?" Hermann asked, hoping it was somewhere, anywhere, near where Hermann went to school.

"Berlin."

"Oh..." That was so far away. "I live in the South, and... go to school in a British school."

Newt seemed a little sad too, and he frowned. "Well... mom does concerts at Lake Como a lot. Maybe... you'll come again?"

"I hope so."

Even though he knew he wasn't supposed to, Newt talked him into pulling off his shoes and socks and rolling up his own trousers and they went back to the mud and when Hermann said 'please don't push me in', Newt had hugged him and said 'of course not'.

\---

Years later, Hermann still remembered that moment, and with the reflection of adulthood he'd always wished he'd kissed Newt. They were _seven_ , it wouldn't have been some great romance, but it would have been nice to have worked that all out in his head when he was much younger.

Hermann never did learn which of the performers was Newt's mother, although he still had his slightly muddy playbill and he had listened to many of their CDs over the years, although the only one that had really stuck in his mind was Monica Schwartz. He listened to her sometimes, when it was decided that the lab needed some music. No one else really cared for her one way or the other, and she was always... just a recollection of a stupid happy memory that Hermann had.

He needed it after the Kaiju came, after the war started, and after there was absolutely no time to worry about the past.

"Duuuuude, Monica Schwartz?"

Hermann glanced up, saw the man who had spoken. He was about Hermann's age, dark brown hair, green eyes, glasses... and he thought his heart might have leaped into his throat. "Yes?" Hermann asked, going for disdainful and instead finding himself short of breath.

"Just not very mainstream," the man answered, before he put out his hand. "Hey. Dr. Newton Geiszler, you can call me Newt."

Hermann was more than aware of the name, at least the 'Geiszler' part from his many papers, but to have it paired with 'Newt' was doing confusing things to Hermann's brain. The brilliant astrobiologist who was analyzing every piece of the Kaiju puzzle might very well be the little boy he'd run through the mud with on Lake Como. "Hermann," he answered. "Dr. Hermann Gottlieb."

Newt did a double take, and gave a look of tentative recognition; Hermann answered by tilting his head and giving him a small smile.

"Not... not quite stars and dinosaurs," Newt said, with a tone that said that perhaps he remembered their time together just as much as Hermann did.

"A bit closer to Mechagodzilla, I'm afraid."


End file.
